Enjoyed the Bronson and Fibich interviews. Quite a contrast with Gogo TV.

Agreed, especially in football and basketball. Use them and forget them.

I’m not sure about where week 1 lands. The brackets aren’t released until the Sunday prior to Thanksgiving (not Saturday historically to allow for the dust to clear on Saturday’s game. 13 weeks inclusive of the Saturday prior to Thanksgiving in 2026 is Aug 29 which is the same week as Aug. 27 the stated date when a game is allowed to be played. So it seems to me to be 13 weeks inclusive is the Saturday prior to Thanksgiving.

re:the video, I noticed Marion telling players to “trust the program …. “ and that “some of you guys have gone sideways”. Seems that it would be difficult to trust a program that is less than a year old (with no games played yet) and where many (or all) claims have not eventuated and are ringing hollow. It is good that he stated that success doesn’t come without hard work, but then later in the recruiting clip has all of those very expensive cars lined up as eye candy (I noted that the editor missed a recruit dropping a MF bomb in that segment. Maybe that is a feature and not a bug).

He quite poignantly says now football was a way out for him - yet 95% or more of his players won’t make the NFL. An occasional “study hard” or “attend to your coursework and get a degree for your future” would be nice. Maybe he does communicate that but it is sure not evident in the tenor of the video.

The language is a bit inexact in that 12 game schedules are not new in FCS. All big sky teams had a 12 game schedule in 2024 with the only exception being Cal Ploy (Portland State cancelled one scheduled game so only played 11). The exact situation is that 12 games schedules can be “permanent” instead of rotating between 11 and 12 game cycles although using the word permanent in college football these days is a bit comical.

I guess Tacos are going 2 for a Dowler.

take away 1 (Sac State) and add 2 (SUU and Utah Tech) makes 9 league games up from 8.

Montana is overrated as per usual, but the fact is that they have 8 home games and probably the easiest schedule of any other big sky team.

I the issue that hasn’t been brought up with Sac is their defense. The supposedly had a lot of injuries last year, but in watching a few of their games, their tackling was absolutely atrocious. Marion is an offensive guy, and good defensive teams seem to always be at the top. Look at the tacking NDSU exhibited in the championship game - stellar. NAU is still a bit of an unknown to me - they did not have a difficult schedule last year and they laid an egg is the playoffs. 0 points and only 237 yards total offense.

interesting about UNCG. Our son graduated for there a dozen years ago or so and he never once mentioned fight songs, etc. The school was originally a teachers college - and our son was a physics major so do t think he attended any basketball games. Maybe they have focused on that aspect more recently.

As far as UCD, the band-uh was the place where are the fight songs and yells were inculcated. Not sure all of the traditions have carried through after the rebranding of the band.

We live in the Raleigh area and after checking flights to Montgomery and to Atlanta figured we could rent a car in Atlanta using the cost differential between flying to Montgomery and Atlanta. Southwest had the best fare from RDU to ATL but Delta has their hub in Atlanta so probably has the most options from the west coast. ATL is southwest of the city so should avoid the worst traffic.

Great place to see a game. Caveats would be potentially dicey weather in November this year and ticket availability unless you have a connection to the UCD allotment. I had to go the third party re-sale route - was not at all happy with vivid seats as they didn’t release them till about hours or so prior to game after purchasing airfare, rental car, air b&b. Had someone on the Bobcat board offer me 2 free tickets but didn’t use them as our purchased tickets came through.

Great atmosphere and Bozeman is nice. Land of Magic steakhouse northwest of Bozeman is great. Very good computer museum (American Computer and Robotics museum) and Jam is a good breakfast place. We stayed in Manhattan (l guess the littlest apple) on 90 NW of Bozeman. Hot springs in the area too.

yah, can increase the number of scholarships but cannot exceed 105 on the roster. So sort of a shell game in the scholarship department. The big schools, like SEC will pour money up to the limit (the direct payment part of the settlement) into the revenue generating sports, I.e., football and men’s basketball.

Some leagues have not imposed roster limits on their teams even for those who have opted-in, and from what I understand there was a change in the settlement to allow grandfathering of players. As for direct payments for most of Big Sky there is not much to go around when you start dividing it up across large rosters. So it seems not opting in at this point in non-bigtime football programs is not a huge issue. But a lot of moving parts. The NIL “constraints” with regard to review of deals over $600 is probably gonna be a joke and the old days of money under the table will return - at least for the P4 teams.

Just bought airline tickets to Atlanta for Mercer game. Looks to be about a 2 hour drive to Montgomery from the airport. Was initially thinking of driving with travel trailer (Cramton Bowl has hookups) but too much time involved even from east coast. Aggie side is western stands so late sun will be on opponents side. Tickets are cheap ($23 for GA) Even thought of “ESPN zone “ for $103 which gives you AC, some food (no host bar) and a general admission seat if you want to slum in the real stands for a while. Probably will go cheap route.

HBCUs are such due to the 1890 land grant (second round of Morrill Act) establishing land grant Universities so Sac State will never be an HBCU or even a land grant for that matter (UC system in CA are land grant Universities.

Matthew Sluka was recruited by Marion to UNLV (from Holy Cross) and according to Sluka’s agent Marion told him he would get a 100k NIL deal …. and when Sluka did not receive compensation he left.

Maybe he “committed” to Sac based on the superior academic experience offered there ,,,,,

My guess is that maybe:
- The SEC offers weren’t that good as a 160 lb. 6’2” (and weight is normally fudged upward in football) would end up as a pretzel in SEC football although he could fill out
-he knew he would ride the bench for a while if not most of his career at an SEC school
- and in either case Marion - who obviously is quite charismatic- sold him “I will get you to the NFL” spiel. 18 year olds hear what they want to hear and Marion won’t be around long enough for those he recruited to experience reality. He seems to always be one step ahead of his promises. The reality is that many of theses young kids think they are going to the NFL and the reality is that very few make it. I don’t think a lot of coaches care about the degree or academic/job preparation of the players, and in that sense the athletes get taken advantage of.

Couple of podcasts by Colter Nuanez and regional sportswriter sidekick about the upcoming Big Sky season. Colter is pretty in the know about big sky - much better than the YouTube interlopers. He is a fan of coach Plough. You’ll have to scroll through some other stuff.

Also available on Apple Podcasts. Show is “Nuanez Now”.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3LTn4cMzXAVR2tuGrbs2ci?si=YyXLVRCARsSnhwdZSRaayA&context=spotify%3Ashow%3A4wBXFpIW0vjyBPuB2hapgm

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4BrPu4vT2E6TnfNNGo2XYJ?si=mpqXU-wkRJ6i48tnl-2loA&context=spotify%3Ashow%3A4wBXFpIW0vjyBPuB2hapgm

yes, CBS has signed a deal as I too understand. Gary Danielson and Brad Nessler were my favorite announcing team - I guess more old school and less prattling on after each play. Danielson retired after last season. Will miss him.

so is the “Pryor coach” Richard Pryor? And his previous tweet about the logic of “a lack of a conference invite signals readiness”????? Well they didn’t get an invite so….? Obviously should have said “unreadiness”. He needs to proof read or get a spell checker and logic checker.